[BD Review] ‘Voodoo Possession’ Will Take Over Your Mind

Voodoo Possession has a tagline of: “There Is A Fate Worse Than Death.”

There is. It is watching this movie – but I’ll be damned if it isn’t worth it.

I am almost certain that the humor aspect of Voodoo Possession is not on purpose. What does that mean? It means that the story of a group of individuals stuck in a decrepit old hospital and being taken over by demons from the past (think Flatliners guilt flashback scenarios) but those demons are actually being caused by a demon – the ‘Tormentor’ – and that we learn about the past of this hospital via a character portrayed by Danny Trejo AND typical Jamaican accented voodoo people – isn’t a joke. It is to be taken seriously. However, the ability to do so is absent, and instead of being left with a soulless tale (there is a pun here with the plot of the film in case you end up watching it) we get a movie that is absolutely hilarious yet is completely well done technically.

Hilarious how? I found myself in a cycle of laughing in that “Are you serious? Oh my god that is absurd! What?” sort of way. Watching the overacting that, again, is questionable as to if it is supposed to be that overdramatic and ridiculous, I felt myself engaged, even if it was to get to the next electrified element of the film that would have me in that chuckle. I honestly wasn’t sure I knew the exact storyline, which, again, focused on a group of individuals, mainly an emotionally troubled man, Aidan Chase, but watching the thespian abilities of not only Ryan Caltagirone as Aiden, but Danny “Machete” Trejo as the hospital administrator, truly had me sucked in. Perhaps you find Trejo’s ‘acting’ questionable, but what else did I refer to as questionable? Right! This entire movie.

Voodoo Possession isn’t a bad movie. I can almost see it tiptoeing that line of films of the past like The Gate. Is it actually good – good? Or is it some sort of nostalgia of it being absolutely questionable in terms of acting and overall storyline – yet somehow the film quality and the visuals of it overall are kind of great and if you think even harder, the story is actually so out of control it’s good – good? I’m going to have to say, for me, it’s the latter – and that, to me, says that it is actually pretty awesome.

First of all, for comparison with the above reference to The Gate – Voodoo Possession had two nemeses that left me incredibly unsettled despite their hokey nature. A corpse-paint-wearing-voodoo-mumbling man wearing a wifebeater and carrying a machete, and the cross-between-alien-and-demon-looking Tormentor, whose voice alone is alarming (think Frank in Donnie Darko before you realized it was a dude in a suit).

From the opening shocking death (that I will not spoil, but I will say it involves a guilt ridden mother, a butcher knife, and a ladder) to the constant guilt ridden obstacles that Aiden battles, Voodoo Possession had me involved in the story on a weird nostalgic level of enjoyment – even if said involvement, again, was a series of weary laughs. The storyline works if you want to take it seriously, too. I would personally just suggest not suspending disbelief – and enjoying it like those Univision soap opera clips they show on The Soup.